The big to do list. Part IV: Refactoring, translating and publishing the game

Hi there, friends and enemies of democracy!

In this final piece of my game to do list, I think about improving my programming, translating the game to different languages, and my dreams of publication.

Translation

Translation is quite essential for this game to have some relevance. Currently, I am getting  more interest from non-spanish speaking countries as from Spanish speaking countries. I can translate to Portuguese and English myself… so this will not be too hard, and highly effective. The boring part is that, given that I focused on fast coding, the textual parts are all over the place.

Separate text from code. A4.

The text used in the game---in buttons, in text boxes, events, introduction, characters etc.---is currently disorganized. Some text is in text files that are called by the game, some is in the middle of the code, some is in the inspector tab of the label node. Before translating, I must find all the text, put on a file, and recode so that everywhere the text is pushed from the file.

This is an easy task, but it is huge, as there is much text. Organizing well the text will also take some thinking.

Translate to English. A3.

This is where the largest audience is. I could totally multiply visits and call the attention of some academical people if I just translate to English. A must do.

It will of course be fun. The biggest challenge, however, is later having to modify the text every time the text change due to new images.

Translate to Portuguese. B3.

Brazilians are currently the second largest nationality playing this game (after Ecuadorians), thanks to my contacts there and the participation of the game in the Processing Community Day Brasil. Translating to portuguese would be less fun than translating to English, given that I have been losing my Portuguese, and moving towards portunol :(.

Translate to Kichwa. B2.

I cannot be in Ecuador and ignore Kichwa. I could just hire someone.

Translate to other languages. D2.

I may add other languages later on, if I feel there is some interest.

Refactoring, or improving code

Programing could improve a bit right now; if the game is to be expanded, programming must improve a lot more.

Map the entire set of alternatives, correct bugs. B2.

With 1 or two playtesters, I could actually map 90% of the set of possible results, and then map all the existing bugs. The real hardship is finding a committed playtester.

This could be done repeated times. Right now, it would be useful cause there is a bug in 5^th year. Later on, if the game expands, new mapping will be necessary.

Events by code. D4-B4.

As I am learning in my current projects, I could have a single event node that handles all the events, using code to switch which event is shown. In the end, this makes things more transparent and scalable, and is not too hard. What it requires is some smart thinking at first, and then hard work for a few days.

This is D4 if the game is not expanded. It becomes B4 if the game is expanded.

Publishing

There are a few paths in which the game may be published, although I must figure out some things before.

In my head, the game could be published in the following format:

• Free version. Only Socratic Democracy.
• Paid version. Socratic Democracy+ Oligarchy+Timocracy for $1.99.

Get a real, academic/UX/Marketing assessment of it. A5.

I can not dream of publishing this game without at least hearing what other academics who teach Socrates’ theory of democracy. I should probably get this done over the summer.

• Academic player. It is potentially lots of work to find an academic who could enjoy playing this game. Xampoo comes to mind though.
• UX designer. Maybe Aline, maybe Amira. I should hire them...
• Marketing. Getting someone who knows the market to assess its potential (which could be no potential). Leopoldo may help, Godot brasil may help.

This task is high priority, in part because it may influence many other tickets listed in this document, such as the improvement of buttons.

Create a Steam Account. B3.

I don't know when is best to do this, but I guess creating a Steam vendor account is probably some work, and should be done earlier rather than later.